Monopoly as MMO.

If the Monopoly board game had been produced to the same standards and design philosophy as MMOs, what would it look like shortly after launch?

There’s a small bug in the dice where it has 1 printed on five of its six sides.

Marketing had announced that there would be twelve player pieces to choose from, each with its own unique abilities and the ability to customise each piece with a unique look. It turns out that marketing may have exaggerated slightly, and that what they actually meant was that there would be four player pieces with no customisability at all. The devs don’t see this as a problem, because who doesn’t want to play as a Victorian iron.

The special abilities of the player pieces had to be temporarily removed when enterprising players realised that the top hat piece’s ability was broken such that it allowed it to always pass Go and always collect £200. Every turn. Including other players’ turns. And even before the game had even started.

When unfolded, only half the board is there. The rest of the board will be added in a future content patch.

It appears that content is lacking on those parts of the board that actually exist. The early content is excellent, with Old Kent Road being a particular player favourite. However, the jail is currently broken: rewarding players with five hundred pounds and the deeds to Mayfair every time they are sent there, and deleting a player’s entire inventory of properties when they’re just visiting. In addition, everything from Pall Mall onwards is just Old Kent road with the prices increased slightly. In fact, on release, Bow Street, Vine Street and Marlborough Street were still coloured brown; a quick patch changed them to orangey-brown. The devs explained that it was a graphics glitch and not because it was all just a copy of earlier content.

In order to balance the player pieces, the underpowered dog piece was given the ability to eat other players’ hotels. The forums are awash with complaints. A mad dash now ensues at the beginning of every game to see who gets to be the dog. The previously popular, recently nerfed, top hat is now rarely played.

The tutorial for new players was confusing and often entirely contradictory, this lead to many early games with players moving anti-clockwise around the board and falling off into space, because that section of the board was still missing.

It was announced just after release that no development of properties can take place because the devs haven’t added player houses and hotels yet. The dog piece quickly falls out of favour as flavour of the month, although people still prefer it over the stupid Victorian iron.

The Chance cards vary greatly in their quality, with some cards giving useful buffs to the players such as “Move forward three spaces” “Inheritance: Collect £150″, but with many others being less useful: “Visit all four train stations, collect an item from the station master there and then deliver all the items to the Electric Company, then come back to me and I’ll give you a quid or something”.

The Community Chest cards are a constant source of frustration as no matter who lands on the square, all players must roll on the Community Chest and cards are taken on a Need or Greed basis.

There are many complaints due to the fact that players who ordered the game in advance have a special bonus player piece that allows them to pick which square they land on each turn.

Due to excessive complaints about the open PvP nature of the game the devs have released a PvE-only version, where all the players join together and form a hippy commune in the middle of Oxford Street and partake in protests against the capitalist state.